Shunichi Makino's AT-AT (Christmas AT-AT)

[Revell-Fan]

Christmas is coming and I needed a new present for my colleague who has already received the TIE Fighter for his BD. The plan was to make an X-Wing as a companion piece but like last year (and the year before, and before, and before ... ) X-mas took me totally off-guard. There was not enough time for the X but I think I can make something smaller as an alternative. Since Shunichi Makino released his magnificent rework of his AT-AT I wanted to build it. Now the perfect time has come.

I'm building the model mostly as-is without any major modifications. The pages printed nicely and the first parts were cut out. I started with the head.

The instructions are clear and can be understood without having to learn Japanese.

One smaller mod takes place pretty early: I cut out the window, recessed the area and glued the red window behind.

As a side effect we have some X-mas colours here which is not too bad. :Grin:

So far the parts fit well. Some minor adjustments have to be made to parts 7 & 11 (too high by 0.2 mm) and 14 & 15 (cutout slightly too small) but I think this was due to the accuracy of my assembly and the paper I used. Nothing wild.

When I attached part 6 I had to cut a hole into the back to apply pressure to the part from the inside with a rod while glue was curing. The head could benefit from some internal formers and I suppose this will be the case with the main body, too. Stay tuned!

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

It looks like you are off to a good start! I am certain that your friend will like this!
I should try my hand at this model as well.

 

[thegreek270]

Well done so far Revell-Fan. I have this one also on my TO-DO List.

I will follow closely.

 

[zathros]

I wonder when you give a gift like this if people (in general) realize how much the time, the most valuable thing you own, the time of your life, is the fundamental of the gift.

 

[micahrogers]

Looks great so far RF, keep it up.

 

[mijob]

THis is a nice model. How big will it be. The Fighter was a big one.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Thank you all for your comments!

The size is interesting. When I finished the head I had a suspicion. Then, when I was building the main body I got curious. I put out my old mpc AT-AT model kit and compared it to Shunichi's. The sizes matched pretty closely! So it is safe to say that this is 1/100 scale and will be about 27 cm long. Now then, here are the latest build pics!

The chin barrels are pretty straight-forward. The parts are assembled with a mix of flaps and edge-glueing.

The neck:

Looking at this pic I noticed that one gun tip was attached the wrong way. I corrected that later.

I too saved the side guns for later. They are flat; maybe I can put some toothpicks to good use.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

This is coming together nicely!!!

 

[Revell-Fan]

The main body:

Part 78 is glued to the middle of the backside of part 31. You don't need to be exact, the beam's only function is to strengthen the bottom.

The foldings of the top part reminded me of origami.

Everything fell in place smoothly and looked GREAT!

I learned my lesson from the head and reinforced the inside of the main body with scrap card. In this case I recycled an old envelope. Then the top and bottom piece were put together.

This is a tight fit but it fits like a glove! The bottom piece makes the part extremely stable.

These are the side panels. They are laminated to the main body.

However, I encountered a problem: Parts 28/28B and 30/30B do not fit precisely. Their white counterparts have to be trimmed. Once that has been achieved everything looks like this:

 

[Revell-Fan]

Now comes the "pelvis".

Assembly is straight-forward.

Part 53 is insertd into part 54. Since there is no backside print the inside of 54 is completely white. I was afraid that this would be visible on the final model and printed out a big grey rectangle on regular paper for makeup purposes. I cut out a small strip and glued it inside 54:

Then 53 was glued inside:

And everything attached to the main beam:

The parts were aligned so that the seam faced up towards the fuselage. However, the little white glue mark on 55 faced the other direction so it does not meet part 51 later. However, that is not a big problem because 51 will cover everything.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Now comes the "butt":

I was amazed that assembly was very easy despite the missing flaps. However, here is something important:

The part does not fit. If you look at the instructions you can see that 51 is going down straight. On the original model it goes down at an agle, angling towards the fuselage. When I tried to attach 51 I noticed that the cutout was wrong. I had to cut off the area marked in red to make it fit.

As a result of this the part began to angle down, just like it should. My theory is that Shunichi noticed that the part was wrong and changed it after finishing the instructions, however he forgot to revise the cutout. Nothing wild but it should be noted for future AT-AT builders. I don't have a cutting template so I recommend to carefully work your way through till the part fits. Test-fit again and again till it is OK. However, once you have the right cut everything falls in place marvellously:

Some plates make the butt complete:

 

[mijob]

Wow that's coming nice together. Job well done.

When I looked at this picture I thought it looks like a army officer.

 

[Revell-Fan]

@mijob : You have funny army officers: one eye, no arms, Terminator endoskeleton chest..! :Grin:

 

[Revell-Fan]

Now we are approaching the hips. There are four pieces in total.

Tiny red markings on the side show where the long strip must be attached. Please note that the dotted lines on the long strip are no folding marks.

All four are completed and attached.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You are doing a GREAT job on the AT-AT!

 

[Revell-Fan]

Thank you!

 

[Revell-Fan]

Short sitrep: I have finished the first leg. It was pretty easy - almost too easy. It was so easy that I did not pay enough attention to the instructions and promptly screwed up the alignment. Twice. ... :explode: I was able to fix it without printing a new sheet but since the pictures I took show a wrongly assembled leg I decided to delete them in order not to misguide anyone. I'll take new pics of the second (hopefully correctly built) leg and post these instead. Please stay tuned!

 

[micahrogers]

you could post the pics of your mistake, so we could know what not to do.

 

[Revell-Fan]

They are gone.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Well, here we go!

These are the parts for the upper thigh.

Assembly is straight forward. Part 64 has two flaps which are folded up and put through the hole in part 65. 64 & 65 are not glued together. 66 has one open side. I was worrying that you could look inside it when it was finished. To my surprise the open side casts an additional shadow on the finished piece which gives it more depth. thumbsup

67 is glued to 63. 63 is turned around. Glue is applied to the ring on 63 and 65 is attached with the flaps facing 67.

This allows the ring to rotate later.

77 has the same kind of flaps like 64.

The instructions clearly tell you what to do. If you look at the pictures you cannot fail. Before 76 is closed the flaps of part 77 are put through the holes in 76.

@micahrogers : If you do NOT look at the pictures and build models way after midnight like me you assemble the pieces the other way around and have to fiddle them out again after you have glued them tightly together.

Part 76 is closed.

Both pieces rotate.

71, 72, 73, 73B & 75 are laminated together and glued to the flaps.

The rotation center is covered and both pieces rotate very well.